


Afterburn

by codswallop



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-11
Updated: 2009-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-12 12:57:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/125057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codswallop/pseuds/codswallop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and the Doctor work out their post-Valiant issues on each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warnings: contains trace amounts of dubcon, some egregious making-up-shit about Time Lord pathology and physiology, and is somewhat unkind to Jack/Doctor 'shippers.

The Doctor slept for nearly a week after the Master's cremation. They left him alone at first, figuring he just needed his space for a bit; he'd been through a lot, as they all had, of course, and disappearing from view for a few days seemed like a perfectly normal response to recent events. When he still hadn't emerged by the fourth day, however, they became a bit concerned. Martha used her TARDIS key, and they found him in a tiny chamber just off the control room, a closet really, containing nothing but a chair and a bed and a sleeping Time Lord in a very rumpled suit. They couldn't wake him, so they took turns keeping watch.

"He seems cold," Martha fretted, when Jack showed up for his first relief shift. "Colder than usual, I mean." She'd changed him into a pair of striped pyjamas she'd found somewhere; must have been quite a thrill for her, Jack thought of commenting, but then thought better of it.

"He's always cold," he said instead, giving her a quick conciliatory shoulder massage. "He's just sleeping it off, lucky bastard. He's fine, he'll be fine, he's always fine."

Which was almost certainly true. Although how would they know? There weren't exactly any Time Lord medical textbooks lying around the TARDIS for quick reference. (They'd looked. A lot.)

"Yeah." Martha smiled, or did something with her mouth that resembled a smile, and stood to go. "Well. I need to get back to my family, they're frantic. Call me, you know, if anything..."

"I will," Jack promised, pulling her in for a hug. She smelled wonderful, soapy-clean with a hint of almond. It was all he could do not to nuzzle her neck. "Go. Be with your family, Martha Jones. Don't worry."

"Yeah," she said again, and sort of laughed; of course she would worry. She turned back at the door and leant down to give the Doctor a kiss on the cheek. "He _does_ seem cold, though," she said, touching her fingers to her lips, frowning, and left.

For the next few hours, the Doctor slept. Jack watched. It was profoundly uninteresting. He wasn't sure why he was here, honestly. He didn't have a whole lot of reasons to like the Doctor very much, at the moment. In fact it was a lot easier to almost hate him when he was inert like this and not leaping around being disarmingly brilliant and saving the world in a dazzle of kinetic charm and nonsense jabber.

Martha was right, though, he did seem awfully cold. His teeth were chattering now. Jack got up and grudgingly fetched another blanket. He fetched one for himself too, as an afterthought, and settled down in the chair by the bed, hoping to catch forty winks of his own. He still felt like he hadn't slept in a year.

When Jack awoke he was already on his feet, snarling and sweating and fighting with thin air, the same way he'd woken up from every sleep for the past five days. It took him a minute or two to remember where he was. TARDIS. Doctor. Right. Jack dropped back into the chair, his heart still racing, and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Drugs, he needed drugs, he couldn't ask Owen but maybe Ianto would -

"Master," the Doctor whispered.

Jack's head jerked up. "What?"

The man on the bed was silent, motionless save for shallow breathing, apparently very deeply asleep.

"And now I'm hearing things," Jack muttered. "Great."

"Master," the Doctor said again, and this time his eyes fluttered open. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Jesus," Jack said, and sprang out of the chair, leaning over him. "Doctor? Are you awake, or..."

"I'm going back for him," the Doctor assured Jack, reaching up to grasp his forearm with one thin, strong hand. His eyes were clear and grave and focused. "I've got it nearly worked out. Just need to sleep a bit more first. Tell Martha--" Abruptly, his eyes closed, his grip on Jack's arm went slack, and no amount of shaking or shouting could rouse him again.

*

"What did he mean, 'go back for him?'" Martha demanded when Jack told her. "Who 'him'? Saxon?"

"Hah, you think? No, Louis the Sixteenth, King of France, I'm sure that's who he meant."

"All right," she snapped, swatting him. "But 'go back'? That's what he said? Not crossing the timeline. He'd never."

"Well, he was out of his head when he said it." Jack waved a hand dismissively, then rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess. He didn't seem it. I don't know, Martha, you know him a lot better than I do these days."

Martha shook her head. "I don't think I know him at all." She looked down at the Doctor fondly, sorrowfully. "Not at all. Saxon - the Master - was the only one who did, maybe. Think of finding that, when you thought you were all alone in the universe, and then losing it again....I can't imagine. It must be horrible for him."

Jack gave a sarcastic laugh. "Yeah. Real horrible to lose your sadistic psycho ex-boyfriend who's just spent the past year dominating the Earth and torturing you and your friends." Martha looked at him, doe-eyed, and he shrugged. "Sorry, is my bitterness showing?"

She smiled. Lovely smile. "Just a bit. You okay?"

"Aaaah, just tired. Look, I'm gonna...go, do some things, maybe catch a nap. Back in a few hours, OK?"

"Okay," Martha said absently. Her gaze had already strayed back to the Doctor, as it would. "Don't...don't go far, all right?"

"I won't," Jack promised, but doubted she even heard him.

 _He should bottle that and sell it,_ Jack thought sourly, as he stepped out of the TARDIS and breathed in the chilly London air again. _Make millions. Billions. Enough to build himself a new goddamn planet._

There was an Underground station only a block from where Jack stood. He was tempted, strongly tempted, to descend into the depths, hop a tube and then a train; he could be back in Cardiff in a few hours. Someone would be there. Maybe all of them. He'd trade punches and hugs with them, dodge their questions about where he'd been--only a few days, of course, for them.

Instead he turned east. There was a hotel he used sometimes; he'd been crashing there, Since. Trying to sleep. Mostly failing.

*

Two more days passed, largely without incident. Martha fretted. The Doctor slept and shivered, regardless of how many blankets and hot water bottles they heaped on him. He didn't speak again, and Jack wondered if what he'd heard earlier had been his own hallucination. Possible, he supposed. He could tell that's what Martha thought. They were both half-mad by now, more or less. At one point Martha decided that the thing to do would be to smuggle the Doctor into her hospital and conceal him somehow as an unregistered patient, where she could at least monitor his vital signs, maybe set him up with a fluid IV. Jack managed to talk her out of this plan, with some difficulty, but he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep her at bay.

And then at some point Jack jerked awake in his chair and when he managed to focus his eyes he realized he was staring at an empty bed.

There were clanking, banging noises coming from the control room, and Jack went out to discover the Doctor, still pyjama-clad, talking very rapidly to himself and tinkering away, elbow-deep in TARDIS guts. Jack just watched for a couple of minutes, because he wasn't entirely sure he wasn't dreaming this, and because it was something of a sight to behold, really. The Doctor threw his entire body into the work, long limbs spidering around the console, occasionally using his teeth when both hands were full. His feet were bare, Jack noticed, and his hair was ruffled into a bizarre postmodern sculpture. He looked, well, alien.

Which didn't stop Jack from feeling an odd pang of desire, to his chagrin. He cleared his throat, loudly and obviously.

The Doctor's head whipped up, and his face broke into one of those trademark dazzling grins he did so well. "Jack! Jack, my good man! You're awake! Awake at last."

"I'm...me, _I'm_ awake at last? That's rich. Very rich," Jack sputtered. "What about you? You were the one in the week-long coma, last I checked."

"Was I? Oh, well, hardly a coma. Bit of a nap maybe. Come on, lend a hand, won't you? Just take this wire, here, and hold that lever down for a moment, right, the silver one, while I go below." He leaped down into a hole in the grating. "Now tell me what you see on the screen when I do this!" he called back up.

"Nothing, it's just black," Jack reported. A feeling of relief began to seep into his consciousness; this was familiar enough, this was normal, the Doctor was okay after all and he'd be able to just go home now, rejoin his team, get back to the work he was used to now, forget forget forget. "Oh, wait, now there's something. Looks like nine x over one-seven-nine-point-two to the power of...pi?"

"What color?" the Doctor yelled.

"Um, red? Or very dark orange. No, wait, it's turning yellow now."

"Brilliant! the Doctor cried, and vaulted back up to the surface, where he peered at the screen himself and began typing madly at the terminal keyboard. "Oh, _yes_! Just as I hoped. Better than I hoped. We are good to go now, Captain Harkness, we are good...to...go!"

"Well, great. That's good. Good to go is...good," Jack said. "So you're really all right, then? Martha was getting pretty worried. We should give her a call."

"Already taken care of," the Doctor answered, still typing. "Yeah, I'm fine. Never better. Bit of a, you know, slight side-effect from the rapid aging process, had to sleep it off, that's all. But look at me now! Good to go!" He beamed brilliantly at Jack again.

Jack found himself grinning back automatically--you couldn't help it. He shook his head, laughing a little. "I guess so. Huh, you really know how to bounce, don't you? You're--" His grin faded, suddenly. "You're still shivering."

"Hm?" The Doctor didn't look up from his work. "Naaah. Warm as toast."

"You are," Jack insisted. "I can see it, you're shaking like a--" He grabbed one of the Doctor's hands. "My god, you're like ice, what the _hell_ , Doctor?" he demanded, his voice sharp with disappointment.

The Doctor snatched his hand back. "I said, I'm _fine_ ," he snapped. "It's of no consequence whatsoever, I can still do what's necessary. Anyway, it's very cold in here, isn't it?" he added brightly. "Where's my coat? And the rest of my kit, for that matter--wherever did you find these old things?"

"I don't know, that was Martha," Jack said, rubbing his forehead. A large knot of apprehension was forming coldly in the pit of his stomach. "What do you mean, do what's necessary? Necessary for what?"

"To retrieve the Master, of course." The Doctor sounded surprised. "I thought I'd told you. Yes, by my reckoning the window of opportunity should be opening up iiiiiinnn"--he squinted at the screen--"thirteen minutes thirty-nine seconds...well, thirty-eight...thirty-seven...well, you get the idea...but it will only stay open for approximately three-tenths of a second, so you can see we've really got to look sharp here." And with that he turned and walked away, swiftly and decisively, heading towards the wardrobe.

Jack followed him, feeling as though he'd just been pitched off a cliff. "Okay, first of all, no. This is _not_ going to happen. Second...what exactly are you planning to do?"

"Oh, it's very simple," the Doctor told him, rifling through racks of nearly identical suits. "The first part, at least. After that it gets a little tricky. What do you think, the blue or the brown? The brown's just ever so sl-ight-ly warmer, I think. Brown it is! I'm taking the TARDIS back to the _Valiant_ at the exact moment of the gunshot," he went on, disappearing behind a screen. "The Master had a good clear radius around him, as I recall. I'll materialize right on top of him, bullet hits the TARDIS instead of its target, no harm done."

"Well, gee, that sounds like a great plan," Jack drawled. "Except for the part where you completely destroy the existing timeline and create a paradox that makes the whole universe collapse."

"Ahhh, but I haven't gotten to the tricky part yet, Jack! Patience, patience. Yes, there is that very large fly in the ointment, as you so perceptively point out, but I shall dispense with it by taking the Master _out_ of the universe a mere fraction of a moment later."

"Out of the universe," Jack repeated, hoping he'd misheard.

"Yes, through the wormhole into a parallel universe which will be opening up in seven minutes and twenty-four seconds, twenty-three, and so forth et cetera." The Doctor stepped from behind the screen, impeccably clad in suit, coat, and trainers again. "There, that's much more like it. Ready?"

"You, you're, you're, you're mad," Jack marveled. "You're off your head, you've gone mad. I can't believe this. For one thing--for one of many, many things--you can't just _go_ to a parallel universe, you were the one who told me that, you said Rose was trapped there!"

"Well, not _that_ parallel universe," the Doctor explained patiently. "Obviously. That one's closed. No, we'll have to take our chances with whatever comes along. Rather exciting, don't you think? It'll be like one of those puzzles in the funny papers, where you have to see if you can spot the thirteen differences between this panel and the next. I've always loved those."

"Stop it!" Jack hissed. "This is not, I repeat, _not_ going to happen, Doctor."

"No?" The Doctor arched an eyebrow. "Wait and see." He strolled back to the control room, hands in pockets. "I do wish you wouldn't be difficult about it, though, Jack," he added over his shoulder. "It's no way to say goodbye."

"Goodbye, right. Oh, of course." Jack started to laugh. "Because you can't bring an anomaly like me along when you disappear into an alternate universe so you can get another crack at reforming a being of pure evil. He's just evil, but me, I'm _wrong_. How could I forget?"

"Oh, Jack," the Doctor sighed. "Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack. You'll never forgive me for saying that, will you. No, it's not that--although it would be a risk, but then the whole thing's just one massive risk really. But you wouldn't want to come along, though, think about it, there'd be nothing for you there. I'll have my hands full, and goodness knows if your Torchwood project will even exist; no, you're much better off where you are. I will miss you, though, O Captain my Captain!" he cried, and wrapped his arms around Jack in a sudden exuberant hug.

Jack nearly pulled away, repulsed by the iciness of the Doctor's flesh, which he could feel all down his body, through all the layers of clothing which separated them. "I've got used to having you round again," the Doctor murmured in Jack's ear. His body was wracked with tremors; it was like being embraced by an electric eel. "Hardly bothers me at all anymore, the whole, you know. But!" he added sharply, pulling back and brandishing the sonic screwdriver in Jack's face, "I will stun you and throw your unconscious body out of the TARDIS if you attempt to hinder me in what I'm about to do. You should know that." He clasped Jack tightly to him again, gave him a resounding smack on the cheek, and bounded away to check the terminal and fiddle with the controls again.

Jack rubbed at his cheek, which now felt lightly frostbitten, and tried to marshal his racing thoughts. The Doctor was clearly not rational, so pointing out the obvious _hey, guess what, you're ill and it's making you act like a crazy person_ was not going to do any good. Nor could he hope to overpower him in a direct attack, since whatever was wrong with the Doctor didn't appear to have affected his strength, and Jack was unarmed.

"How much longer now?" he asked.

"Three minutes twelve," the Doctor replied, glancing up briefly. "Time to say our farewells, Jack."

"The thing is, though," Jack mused. "I've been thinking, I'd kind of like to try my chances with this parallel universe of yours."

"Oh, I don't--" the Doctor began, but Jack cut him off.

"No, just listen, just one minute, all right? Here's the thing. I still think you're crazy to try this, but I know I can't stop you, and fine, maybe you really do know what you're doing. And me, I need to get away from Torchwood--you were right all along, it's a diseased organization and I think it's really got my head turned around. This could be my chance to start over fresh. Also, I'll be honest, I just don't like the idea of living in a universe without you in it. I spent a century and a half trying to track you down, you know? I can't say goodbye, Doctor, not like this, not yet."

"Well, that's lovely, really, Jack, I'm flattered, but--"

"Thirty more seconds! Hear me out. I'm not asking to travel with you once we get there. I don't think that would be a good idea for either of us, actually. You'll need to focus all your energies on the Master at first, and I need to learn how to find my own way without just chasing after you all the time. So I'll only be hitchhiking with you until we get there. But this way, at least there's a chance our paths will cross again. That's how I'd like to leave it, if it's all right with you."

He held his breath. The Doctor was looking down, hands braced against the circuitry board, apparently deep in thought.

"Or maybe not," Jack said quietly. "All right. If that's the way it has to be, then...I wish you the best."

"No, stay, Jack," the Doctor decided. "I'd like that, actually. If you're sure, that is."

Jack grinned. "Oh, I'm sure, all right." _The first part's easy,_ he told himself. _After that it gets a little tricky._

"Then..." The Doctor grinned back and began racing around flipping switches and pulling levers, apparently at random even though Jack knew better. "Allons-y, Captain, hang on to your hat--next stop, the _Valiant_!"


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor might have gotten used to having Jack around again, but the TARDIS hadn't, or perhaps she was still recovering from the Master's ill-usage of her. She bucked and shuddered like a light aircraft under heavy turbulence as they got underway, then seemed to stall out entirely, and both the Doctor and Jack were flung off their feet.

It was the chance Jack needed. The vortex manipulator was generally quite reliable for short hops, and a moment later he was standing on the TARDIS deck all alone, just minutes in the past, listening to the sound of his own voice arguing with the Doctor in the wardrobe room.

He didn't have long. He raced over to the control panel and adjusted the settings, small enough changes that the Doctor might not notice, but enough to throw the TARDIS off her programmed course, he hoped. "Please let this work," he breathed, and sidestepped back into the present.

"--YOU DONE? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" the Doctor was already screaming as he re-materialized. Jack shook his head, trying to clear it, dizzy from the re-entry and from the wild swaying of the TARDIS in flight. All at once the noise and motion stopped as they reached their destination and came to a grinding halt, and Jack's ears rang in the silence.

"What. Did. You. DO?" the Doctor snarled through clenched teeth. He looked utterly unlike himself, crazed and vicious, and Jack scrabbled backwards in reflexive self-defense. The Doctor lunged after him and grabbed him by the shoulders, his hands cold claws. "WHAT? TELL ME!"

"I--" Jack started, and then they heard the gunshot from outside--muffled, distant--and they both froze. Jack watched the blood drain from the Doctor's face.

"But that was too far off," the Doctor whispered. He let go of Jack and stumbled toward the TARDIS door.

"Doctor, you can't!" Jack threw himself after him, but he was still off-balance; he tripped over his own feet and went sprawling, and the awful consequences of his failure started to play out like a horror movie in his mind's eye, but then he realized he'd just managed to snag the Doctor's ankle as he fell and Jack _yanked_ and the Doctor went down, hard, and Jack lunged again and pinned him to the floor.

"You can't," he repeated, holding on grimly as the Time Lord's whipcord-and-steel body struggled and thrashed beneath him. "I'm sorry, I couldn't let you, you're mad or you wouldn't want to try." He thought suddenly of Ianto, fighting for his cyborg lover long past all hope or reason, and felt ill.

"Let go, Jack, I've got to, you don't understand, _I can change it_ ," the Doctor choked, and nearly managed to throw him off, for all that Jack must outweigh him by three or four stone; it was like trying to hold down a bundle of live wires.

 _"Regenerate!"_ they heard the Doctor howl from outside, faintly, and then a few moments later that terrible, strangled wail, and the Doctor shuddered beneath Jack and went limp, finally, pressing his forehead into the floor.

"I'm sorry," Jack said again more quietly. "I set the course back by thirty seconds and thirty feet, it was all I could think to do. We're in one of the corridors just outside the bridge, I think. But we have to get out before anyone spots us, can you take us out? I am sorry, Doctor, truly, but you'll understand later on, I hope."

He released his grip on one of the Doctor's wrists, cautiously, and when the Doctor didn't move he released the other one, and then rolled off him, slowly, still on guard.

After a few tense moments the Doctor got to his feet, dusted off his suit, straightened his tie, and walked over to the console without a glance at Jack. His face was white and set as he punched in the data for a new destination on the control panels and silently primed the TARDIS for takeoff.

He took them out, and then he disappeared back into his chamber and resumed his sleep state again, leaving Jack alone in the deafening quiet.

*

They were now on the moon, Jack discovered. Earth's moon. He couldn't tell when, but it hardly mattered; he was still trapped there. All right, not completely trapped, as he did now possess a working vortex manipulator, but held hostage there by his inability to abandon the Doctor in his seemingly helpless condition. Helpless _and_ volatile, as who knew what horrible thing he might take it into his head to do the next time he awoke.

Jack wondered if the Doctor really had contacted Martha or not. Unlikely, he decided. Not much he could do about that now.

He watched the Doctor sleep for another day and a half, feeling increasingly desperate and unhinged, and getting up to wander aimlessly around the TARDIS now and again. At one point he found himself in the wardrobe, fingering the sleeve of a black leather coat; he wasn't sure how long he'd been standing there, half in a trance, and then his eyes were suddenly fixed by the time-travel device on the wrist of the hand that was fondling the coat, and he started to laugh.

"I could," he said, chuckling still, and then "God, I _could_. Could I?" His mind raced over the various implications and permutations and he finally deduced that he could, probably, perhaps. If he could get there and back accurately enough, which was a big if. If the Doctor didn't wake while Jack was gone and take the TARDIS off again to god-knows-where.

Jack went back to contemplate the body on the bed again. The Doctor had transcended mere paleness and gone on to a cadaverous shade of grey, and he seemed to be barely breathing. He wouldn't die, Jack reminded himself. He'd regenerate, if it came to that. Or would he simply decide not to, as the Master had done?

"I'm going to get help," Jack said aloud. "I'll be right back. I hope. Please, _please_ don't go anywhere, all right?"

*

There was a time, he remembered, when he and Rose had somehow managed to cajole the Doctor into taking them to Studio 54 at the height of the disco craze. The Doctor had stayed for all of twenty minutes, looking quietly amused at first and then very bored, and then he'd begged off, saying there were some repairs he'd been meaning to attend to and they should enjoy themselves, he'd see them in the morning. Jack had enjoyed himself very much, in fact, with multiple partners in multiple settings and a wide variety of substances, and he'd lost track of Rose early on but was certain he'd seen her gyrating on the dance floor for some time after the Doctor's disappearance. It wasn't much of a window to aim for, but it was the best he could think of--and relatively close by in terms of time and distance.

And come to think of it, the Doctor had acted a bit off for a day or two after that little jaunt, quieter than usual, looking at Jack strangely. At the time Jack had put it down to disapproval of his recreational activities, maybe even (he'd still hoped, naively) a bit of jealousy. But perhaps it hadn't been that at all.

His heart hammered in his chest as he set the dials of the vortex manipulator to the proper coordinates. His hands were shaking and he doublechecked, triplechecked, unable to believe he was really about to just _do_ this after all this time, all those decades of impotent waiting. Surely the thing was impossible.

But it wasn't impossible, apparently, because he pushed SEND and the next thing he knew he was picking himself up off the gratework floor of the TARDIS, and the air had changed slightly and he wasn't alone in the room.

"Changed your mind, in for an early night?" the Doctor inquired cheerfully from the other side of the console where he was crouched over some task or other, his hands full of metal and plastic. "That's not like you, Jack."

"No," Jack responded, and stopped there, because he had no voice for anything more.

"Oh," the Doctor said, looking at him more closely, then standing up and dropping the bits of machinery he was holding. "Oh, I see. Hello."

Jack laughed. "Hello yourself," he managed, and then he couldn't help it, he ran at the Doctor and swept him up in a violent, crushing hug, _his_ Doctor after all this time, all this time, all this time. He smelled just the same, Jack noticed with some surprise, except for the coat, but the sensation was otherwise entirely different.

After a couple of minutes the Doctor gently extricated himself and Jack stepped back, wiping his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice thick. "It's just, it's been a _really long time_ , for me."

"I can see that," the Doctor answered, fixing him with a steel-blue critical gaze. "No offense, but you look terrible, Captain."

"Yeah, it's been...it's been a rough year." Jack laughed again, humorlessly, and turned away from the Doctor's puzzled scrutiny. He couldn't know Jack's true nature but he'd clearly sensed something, and Jack didn't think he could bear to witness his look of revulsion, instinctive or no.

"Anyway, I'll get to the point," Jack said quickly. "This isn't a social call, I'm sure you've realized. I came because I need you to tell me how to fix a broken Time Lord."

"Oh, dear," the Doctor mused. "So that's it, is it? Yes, there's one of the lesser-known hassles of being the last of your species: having to act as your own physician from time to time. It _is_ me, isn't it?" he asked suddenly, swivelling round. "Not some other Time Lord you've managed to find squirreled away somewhere on your travels?" He grinned widely at Jack to show he was joking. Mostly joking.

"Sorry, yeah," Jack said. "Hah, that'd be something, right?"

"Wouldn't it just. Ah, well." The Doctor squinted, pulling at one of his ears (oh, Jack had missed those ridiculous ears). "So. What seems to be my problem?"

Jack explained as best he could: sleep state, coldness, wildly irrational behavior.

The Doctor looked stricken. "For how long?"

"About a week, I guess," Jack told him. "Why, what is it, what's wrong with him?"

"Hard to say," the Doctor said slowly. "Something must have triggered it, I'm guessing; Time Lords don't just fall ill, you know."

"No," Jack agreed. "But--"

"No, I know, I know, best not say another word." He dropped his head and thought for a bit. "Salt!" he pronounced finally, looking up at Jack with that slightly mad smile of his.

"I'm sorry?"

"That's my prescription. Salt. A _lot_ of salt; try giving me a few tablespoons in a glass of water once an hour. Should shock me right out of it. Although..." He laughed. "Never mind. You won't care, knowing you."

Jack looked blank. "He's in a coma," he said finally, "and you're telling me the cure is _salt_? Jesus, you guys are weird. Then again, I've seen you fix the TARDIS using a book of matches and an empty soup tin before, so I don't know what I expected."

The Doctor shrugged. "Human medicine is unnecessarily complicated, I've always thought. No, trust me, salt'll do the trick. There might be...side effects." He gave Jack a funny look, then grinned and slung an arm around his neck. "Nothing to worry about, I imagine. You'll see. Anyway there's no 'him,' Jack. It's me. I promise you, no matter how different I may look, I'm still exactly the same man as I've ever been."

"I never said you'd changed!" Jack protested.

"No?" The Doctor smiled fondly at him, clapped him on the back, and went back to his repair job. "My mistake, then. Never mind. I'll tell you one thing, though, Captain," he added, pointing at Jack with the sonic screwdriver for emphasis. "You've changed more than I ever will, that's almost certain. You'd better go now."

"Right, all right," Jack muttered automatically, his mind still two steps behind, and then "Well, then," and it seemed as though there should be something he could say out of all the millions of conversations he'd imagined with the Doctor over the years, but nothing came to him.

"Go on, off with you," the Doctor told him, kindly enough. "You can tell me back in your own time, whatever it is. Still me, remember? And I won't say farewell; I'll be seeing you later, apparently! Safe travels, Captain."

"Safe travels to you," Jack echoed, and made himself hit RETURN TO LAST on his vortex manipulator, and when he hit the floor this time he just rolled over onto his back and lay there for a long time, staring far up at the TARDIS ceiling.

It wasn't true, of course, it wasn't the same man at all. His own Doctor, the proper Doctor, would never have gotten himself into this situation, would never have allowed any of it to happen in the first place, the Master, losing Rose, everything. Even (especially) abandoning Jack on the gamestation; the old Doctor, Jack fiercely insisted to himself, would have gone back for him, would have found a way to _fix_ him if he was so wrong, instead of running away.

This Doctor, as far as Jack Harkness was concerned, was pretty much a failed experiment all the way around. But he sighed, after a bit, and picked himself up off the floor and went off in search of a box of salt. What else was there to do?


	3. Chapter 3

3.

The salt proved effective, but not exactly in the way Jack was expecting. Shortly after the second dose, the Time Lord opened his eyes and said "Jack," sleepily, and then "Come here. No, closer, right here," and when Jack was sitting on the edge of the bed the Doctor reached up and gripped him hard by the back of the neck, pulling him down for a long, intense kiss.

"Hey, whoa, hold on!" Jack cried, or tried to, but it was difficult while his mouth was being firmly and insistently plundered by the Doctor's tongue. At last he managed to pull back far enough to gasp out, "What in the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Well. Kissing you?" the Doctor replied. "For starters. Here, come back, let me..." He kept his grip on the back of Jack's neck and pulled him down again--Christ, he was strong--but Jack managed to turn his head and the Doctor's seeking mouth landed on his jaw this time.

"Yeah, I got that." Jack shivered as the Doctor trailed a series of soft, cold kisses up his jawline, ending in a hard nip at the spot just below his left ear. "What I meant was more--oh-- _why_?"

"Feels good," the Doctor murmured, nuzzling at the spot he'd just bitten. His hands were at Jack's waist, untucking his shirt and sliding up inside. Jack inhaled with a sharp hiss, his stomach muscles contracting at the icy touch.

"All right, that's enough!" Jack grabbed the Doctor's hands, pushing them away.

The Doctor chuckled. "Oh, hardly," he rumbled. "Far from it, I'd say." He eeled his hands out of Jack's grasp and in a blink had executed a neat little gymnastic/wrestling manouevre that ended with Jack being pinned to the bed beneath him, face to face.

"Okay, I'm going to say this exactly once, very calmly and using small words," Jack pronounced. "You're ill, or you wouldn't be doing this. Please get off of me. Now."

The Doctor began unbuttoning Jack's shirt. "What, playing hard to get? There's no need. You want this, you've always wanted it, you've never made a secret of it."

 _He's sick, I can't punch a sick man,_ Jack reminded himself firmly. "All right, so maybe I have. And yet here I am, saying no. What's wrong with this picture? You want to stop and think about that for a second?"

"Don't have to." The Doctor slid a hand down the front of Jack's trousers. "Aha, what's this? Doesn't feel like a 'no' to me, Captain..."

"Stop it!" A rill of panic washed over him and he bucked convulsively, his body half anticipating the recoil of the manacles, but there were none, of course, and he was able to thrust the Doctor aside and scramble off the bed. He backed toward the door, panting a little. "Not like this. Never like this. Jesus, Doctor, you don't...you can't..." He laughed. "Why am I trying to talk to you? It's insane. You're insane. I'm not doing this anymore. Forget it."

And then, because there was nowhere else he could run to, he dialed the vortex manipulator to a set of coordinates he knew well, and vanished into the void with the Doctor's cry of "Jack, no! Wait!" echoing inside his head.

Fifteen minutes later Jack was sitting on a barstool in New New Delhi, well on his way to getting very, very drunk.

*

He would never remember most of the next seventy-two hours, which included five full bottles of rotgut whiskey, nine tabs of Forget, four brawls (one of which ended in his own violent death), and one night behind bars. He sobered up in jail long enough to charm the night guard, an octaroon feline, into letting him out of his cell, then scratched his captor behind the ears until he fell asleep purring, allowing Jack to slip out through the emergency exit.

On the third night he was forcibly ejected from an establishment called The Drunken Bee and hit the ground in an extremely unsavory alleyway. It seemed as good a place to spend the rest of the night as any, and he promptly passed out. He didn't even twitch when the TARDIS materialized noisily a few feet away, nor when the Doctor stepped out and nudged his arm gingerly with one immaculate trainer.

"Oh, Jack," he sighed. "Stinking drunk is one thing, but did you have to take it so literally?" He did a quick scan of his friend's inert body with the sonic screwdriver, grunted, then squatted on his heels to turn Jack's head to the side and carefully peel the Forget patch from his neck, flinging it away with a _tsk_ of disgust. Then he grasped the body from behind, locking his hands beneath Jack's armpits to drag him backwards through the ship's open door.

"No help for it, I suppose," he muttered. "Just try not to vomit until I can find a proper bucket for you, will you? It's hell to get out of the gratework."

*

Jack awoke briefly some hours later to find himself in a low bed in a small room with soft lighting. His head was splitting, his throat was raw, and his belly was sore in that way you only get from long bouts of repeated puking. "Ah. Ow," he said, and a very thin, rather interesting-looking man of indeterminate age appeared in the doorway of the room, holding a glass of water with a straw in it.

"Hello," Jack rasped, raising himself up on one elbow with some difficulty. "Captain Jack Harkness at your service--I think. Have we met? I certainly hope so."

"Jack, how you can possibly still have any of that garbage left in your system at this point is well beyond me," the man said crossly. "Here, drink," he ordered, thrusting the glass at him and frowning down at him while he complied. Jack collapsed back on the pillow when he'd finished and the man, the...doctor? bent to retrieve the empty glass, pausing to lay a hand briefly on Jack's forehead.

"I can't begin to tell you," the man said sorrowfully, "how very, very badly you need a bath right now, Jack. Go back to sleep." He dimmed the lights as he left, but Jack was already out again.

*

Everything still hurt the next time Jack woke up, and worse, his memory was back. He groaned, not too loudly, and shambled over to the bathroom, where he turned on the shower and stood under the hottest water he could bear for a long time. Then he dried, dressed, shaved, brushed his teeth, brushed them again, and finally took a deep breath and rejoined the world of the living, with one last longing look at his vortex manipulator.

The Doctor was in the control room, sitting in the jump seat with his feet up on the console, reading a battered old copy of _The Phantom Tollbooth_. He glanced up as Jack entered, then leapt to his feet, and the two of them just stood there gazing at one another, warily, diagnostically, for a long moment.

"Well, there's one thing I've got to know," Jack said at last. "How'd you find me?"

"Ohhh, are you kidding?" the Doctor cried eagerly. "You leave an energy trail about a mile wide traveling with that thing! Broken gamma particles spewing out in your wake like mad, easiest thing in the world to just set the TARDIS to trace any unusual disturbances in the space-time continuum and off she goes like a bloodhound. Mind you, you do have to remember to filter the readings by a carbon-based control setting, and I...am babbling on in far too much inappropriate detail in a misguided attempt to defuse a supremely awkward situation here, aren't I."

"No, it's fascinating, do go on," Jack deadpanned.

"Oh, but that's the wrong answer, even in jest, because I will, you see, and then we'll be here all day and all night. Which, funny thing, we happen to be landed on the second planet of the Iisthopelian system at the moment, where a full solar rotation takes only six and a half minutes, can you imagine, it's rather dizzying even for me, and I'm doing it _again,_ you see?" He shook himself, paused, then looked directly at Jack in dreadful earnest. "Jack," he said, and stopped.

"Skip it," Jack suggested quickly. "Wouldn't you rather? I know I would."

"No, I don't think I can. I can run away from a lot of things, but this...Jack, 'I'm sorry' doesn't begin to cover it. I literally have no idea what to say to you right now."

The Doctor's sudden stillness and intensity made Jack fidgety, and he wandered over to pick up the discarded book sitting on the jump seat, for lack of anything else to do with his hands. "Imagine how I feel, then," he said, flipping through the pages. "You weren't responsible for what you were doing, you weren't well, and I just--" He looked up suddenly. "Weren't well, past tense, is that correct? You're better?"

"Oh, more or less. I won't lie to you this time, I'm not completely up to speed yet, but I'm on the mend, yes." The Doctor reached out and offered Jack his hand, and Jack took it; it was cool but no longer icy, and the tremors had gone.

"Well, good," Jack said. "Just, you know, try and avoid being rapidly aged by nine hundred years all at once in the future, okay then?"

"It wasn't that." The Doctor dropped Jack's hand and turned away. "It was...it was grief," he told the console, almost inaudibly.

"Beg pardon?"

The Doctor looked up. "Grief, grieving, it was a grief reaction," he said clearly. "Deep mourning has an intense physical effect on the body of a Time Lord, sends the entire system into a tailspin. When I, when Gallifrey, when it..." He swallowed. "I regenerated, that time."

"So you knew," Jack mused, taking this in. "When I went back and asked for your help, the--the old you, you must have known what I was describing."

"Yes. Though not what would cause it, of course. I thought...you came back alone, I thought perhaps..." He slammed his fists against the console suddenly, making Jack jump. "I should have been able to control it this time!" he shouted. "I shouldn't have given in to it, not when I knew...and I should have warned you about what kind of effect the salt could have. Stupid, unforgivable. I'm so sorry, Jack."

"Hey," Jack said uneasily. "No harm done, right?" _Grief reaction,_ he was thinking. _He was sick with grief, mad with grief, for that fucking animal psycho who..._ But what he said out loud was "Listen, do you think the TARDIS would let me scare up anything to eat? I'm feeling strangely empty, for some reason."

The Doctor gave a surprised laugh. "Well, you would, I suppose, wouldn't you? All right, let's go see what we can coax from the larder."


	4. Chapter 4

The TARDIS was still unhappy about carrying Jack as a passenger, apparently, and refused to provide any comestibles besides a platter of stale jam sandwiches and a single dented tin of sardines. It was better than cold mashed swede, though, or at least no worse, and Jack devoured half a dozen sandwiches while the Doctor nibbled moodily at the sardines.

"So. Salt, huh?" Jack said dubiously, between huge bites. "That's all I ever had to do to get you in bed, all this time? Who knew?"

"Stop it," the Doctor warned, but without heat. "It's a shock to the system, that's all, if you take it in large enough quantities. But it can have some...interesting side effects, yes. In certain situations. Sodium chloride is an illegal substance on Gallifrey, you know. Was. I'd only tried it once before. Long time ago. Long story. Very long, very boring story for another time, and aren't you finished with that yet? Come for a walk? Lovely sunsets here. Or sunrises; it's impossible to tell which, but they come along every three minutes or so."

"No, thanks," Jack said, yawning. "I could sleep again, actually, if you can believe that."

*

He woke up fighting again, blinded by panic and confusion. It took particularly long for the nightmare to separate itself from reality this time, probably because he was struggling against an actual person for a change. Once the Doctor realized he was only making matters worse and stepped back to give Jack his space, it was over fairly quickly, and Jack sat down on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, trying to remember where and when he was and how to breathe.

The Doctor brought him a glass of water and handed it to him silently.

"Thanks," Jack told him, after a bit. "Sorry, that was a bad one. I-I'm all right now, really, you can go."

"Do you want me to go?" the Doctor asked.

Jack thought about it. "No," he admitted.

The Doctor threw himself down on the bed, stretched out long, carefully not touching him although Jack could feel the weight of his gaze. "This happens a lot?" he wanted to know.

Jack didn't answer.

"Right. Ever since the _Valiant_ , I'd wager."

"Funny, that," Jack said tonelessly. "Turns out, being held captive for an entire year by a madman who likes to find new and exciting ways to kill you over and over again? Sometimes gives you bad dreams afterwards, for a while."

"Can I have a look?" the Doctor asked, reaching up with one hand and hovering his fingertips over Jack's temple. "Just at the nightmare, I mean. I promise not to go rummaging round."

Jack shot him a look of utter disbelief. "You're out of your fucking mind again. Are you kidding? Leave me a shred of dignity here, just a shred, all right?"

"I didn't--" The Doctor pulled back. "I just, I thought it might help." He studied his hands, frowning. "Help me, I mean. To see what he looked like. To you. But you're right, it's too--I shouldn't have asked, I'm sorry."

"Oh, I'll tell you," Jack said, giving in to a sudden flare of anger. "He looked like a _sick fuck_ , that's what. Think, just think, of every possible way you can kill a human being, and there you go, because he pretty much went through all of them, the slower and more painful the better. He got _bored_ of it after a while, if you can imagine that." Jack laughed. "But then you were there for some of it, weren't you? How could I forget. Yeah, he sure did love letting you watch, didn't he?"

"I would have done anything in my power to stop him," the Doctor said, his voice low and intense. "You must know that, Jack."

"Huh, well, you weren't able to, were you, so that was too bad." Jack had got up and was pacing the room now, vaguely aware that he ought to shut up, walk away, cool down. The sensation of _hitting back_ , though, after that long year of powerlessness--it was better than any drug, it was damn well orgasmic. "And then you for _gave_ him, oh, that was the really great part. After everything he did--not just to me, fuck that, that was nothing in the grand scheme of things--you watched him kill and torture, all those months, and he _loved_ it, too, and you... But _I'm_ the monster, me, I'm the abomination that you had to run away from, that's right, isn't it?"

The Doctor said nothing, just regarded him steadily. He had gone very pale.

"You wanted _him_!" Jack shouted, his voice cracking. "You _wanted_ him. You'd have him here with you right now, if you could. Wouldn't you?" he demanded. "No, don't answer that, I don't want to hear you say it. Just... _fuck_!" he yelled, and turned and punched the wall. "...Ow," he said thoughtfully, after a moment, and gave a shaky laugh. "Wow, okay, that really hurts."

"Is it broken?" the Doctor asked, sitting up, with more interest than concern.

"The wall or my hand?"

"Your hand, of course. TARDIS walls are pretty tough. Come here, let me see?...ooh, yeah, that's going to leave a mark. Could be worse though, you could have punched me, and I'm even tougher. Flex your fingers, can you make a fist? There, you're all right, should probably get some ice on it, though." He paused, then, still contemplating Jack's knuckles, and added, "I can't explain what he was to me, Jack. I wouldn't know where to begin. And it wouldn't make any difference, even if I could; you're right, about all of it, and it's a horrible horrible thing, there's nothing I could possibly say to change that." He dropped Jack's hand and stood up. "Let me go find some ice for this, I'll be right back."

He was gone for more than a few minutes, actually, long enough to Jack to get over his initial reaction of shame at his outburst and begin to feel philosophical and then a bit drowsy, finally. He got back into bed and shut his eyes, for lack of any other ideas.

Then, "Peas!" the Doctor announced, reappearing in the doorway. "No ice, but frozen peas; that should do the trick." He tossed a small green bag onto the bed. "Oh, were you asleep?"

"Not quite." Jack applied the peas to his damaged hand, wincing. "Sorry for...blowing up. That was--"

"Skip it," the Doctor suggested, with a half grin. "Honestly. Tell you what, though, can I borrow that bit of the bed you're not using? Come on, budge over, I won't bite. This time. Well, only if you ask nicely."

Jack had to laugh. "Are you _flirting_ with me now?" he asked as the Doctor flopped down beside him.

"No! Course not. Flirting, was that flirting? Oh, well..." he gazed up at the ceiling, then glanced sideways at Jack. "A bit, maybe. Not so's you'd notice. Unless, did you...want me to be flirting? At all?" he went on, casually-not-casually. "Probably not. Definitely not. Never mind!"

"I can't keep up with you," Jack marveled. "Literally, I cannot keep up, I have no idea how you ever get anyone to stay with you for more than a few days. Seriously, you're coming on to me, _now_? Right now, you decide this would be an okay idea. This is the salt talking, still, isn't it?" he accused.

"Not entirely," the Doctor protested. "I mean there is that, yes, perhaps, but also I just thought it might be...nice."

"Nice," Jack repeated flatly.

"Well, or, I don't know, I'm out of my depth here, clearly, but...wouldn't it? Nothing nice has happened in a long time, it's all been death and horror and awfulness, for both of us, and I'd like to have something _nice_ to remember, for once. Wouldn't you?" He looked earnestly at Jack, reaching out to stroke a thumb across his cheekbone, then yanked his hand back as though he'd been burnt. "Not if you don't really want to, though, never that, Jack, I could never, I hope you realize that."

"No, I know, but..." Jack shook his head, wondering how they'd gotten to this clearly alternate version of reality. "You're not serious. And if you are serious, it's just because you're all...doped up on some kind of weird Time Lord aphrodisiac, and I'd be taking advantage of you. No way."

The Doctor gave a delighted laugh. "Oh, Captain Jack Harkness, ever the gentleman. I like that, I do. No, but it doesn't work like that, really; the salt's just an excuse, more than anything. It doesn't create desire where there was none to begin with, it just...enhances the ability to act on it, I suppose. Removes the restraint. So. Your scruples have been duly noted, but are not strictly relevant to the situation." He propped his head on one hand, loosened his tie, and leveled a searching gaze at Jack's face, his eyes dark and serious. "I'm yours for tonight, Jack, if you want me. No joke."

Jack felt his heart rev into a higher gear, a shock of excitement spreading in his gut as he took in what might be about to happen. It crossed his mind that the Doctor was pretty obviously using him as a substitute for what he really wanted; he weighed this for a moment and found that he didn't much care. _If you want me..._ oh, did he like hell, and screw the why and wherefore. But first: "For tonight," he clarified. "Because I'm going home, I'm not traveling with you again. So this isn't going to lead anywhere, it's just a, a thing."

He was telling himself, more than anything, or maybe he was asking, but the Doctor simply nodded, looking at him with an unreadable expression.

"So, all right," Jack told him, feeling suddenly nervous.

There was a long, weighted pause.

"Oh! A-all right, you mean, you mean...you mean okay, you mean yes?" the Doctor asked, wide-eyed.

"I mean please let's stop talking," Jack said fervently.

"Oh, yes," the Doctor agreed, and pulled him close.

*

They touched lightly, tentatively at first, the Doctor kissing Jack on the side of the mouth softly as if determined not to spook him this time. It wasn't enough and Jack longed to yank him closer but this was good too, in its way, and he held back and savored the warm current of anticipation coursing through his body. But when the Doctor bent his head to nuzzle at Jack's neck, the warm current turned to pure molten lust--Jack couldn't take it anymore, he drew a shuddering breath and threaded his fingers into the Doctor's hair, tipped his head back and kissed him hungrily. The Doctor gave a surprised squeak in his throat and then a small moan of pleasure as he fell back onto the bed, pulling Jack down on top of him without breaking this kiss.

"One of us," Jack observed after a bit, "is wearing far too many clothes, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Hmm?" The Doctor raised his head and looked down. "Oh, I see. Yes, this needs to go," he agreed, plucking at the t-shirt Jack had been sleeping in. "Better lose the shorts, too, while you're at it..."

"Nuh-uh. You first," Jack dared him.

The Doctor frowned, hesitating, and for a minute Jack was afraid he'd gone too far and wrecked it, that the Doctor would leap up off the bed now and make an excuse, any excuse, to get out. Then, "All right, if you insist," he said offhandedly, and shed his clothes with alarming speed, shoes and all, then lay back against the pillows with his arms crossed behind his head.

"What, no comment?" he asked. "I thought this was the part where we engaged in a bit of witty banter to relieve the inherent tension of the situation here. Nothing? Not a quip? A quibble?"

"No, you go ahead, I'm good," Jack said absently, staring.

"Gobsmacked by my manly beauty? Yes, well, that happens," the Doctor sighed. "Back to it, then?" he asked hopefully.

Jack couldn't answer; he just wanted to look at him forever, the long lean lines of his body laid bare, the pale pale skin with constellations of freckles and a flushed V at the base of his throat, and Jack hadn't even dared glance below the waist yet. In lieu of words he reached out and stroked a hand slowly down the Doctor's body, reverently, from collarbone to hip, and the Time Lord arched his back, inhaling sharply.

"Your turn," he suggested in a slightly ragged voice, and sat up, lifting Jack's shirt and then stripping it off him, wrapping arms and legs around him so that they were locked together, skin on skin, and Jack was briefly startled by the strangeness of that syncopated double-heartbeat thudding directly against his chest.

"Oh," Jack said helplessly, and kissed him again, gently at first and then insistently, ravenously, he'd never wanted anyone so badly in his _life_ and he groaned as the Doctor shifted his hips, pressing his erection against Jack's with only one thin layer of fabric between them.

"I want you to fuck me," the Doctor murmured low in his ear. "I need--" he swallowed audibly-- "I want you inside me, Jack, will you, please?" he begged.

"Jesus," Jack breathed. "Okay, wow, this is moving kind of quickly, here. I mean that's a _yes_ , obviously, but...if this is just for one night, I kind of want to take the long road to get there, if you see what I mean."

"Oh, absolutely," the Doctor agreed, giving him a slightly dizzy version of the brilliant grin. "Just wanted to be very clear about where we're headed. Touch me?" he suggested, taking Jack's hand and guiding it down, and then "Oh, yes," which broke off in a whimper as Jack wrapped his fingers around the smooth cool length of him and began to stroke.

*

In all the times--the many, many times--Jack had fantasized about sex with the Doctor, he had never imagined it to be anything like this. For one thing there was the whole matter of his having a different body, of course, which Jack was still getting used to but which admittedly had its advantages. For another, he'd always preferred to envision himself getting rather aggressively fucked by the Doctor; or alternatively, that the Doctor would turn out to have no experience at all and that Jack would have to talk and coax and guide him through it.

The reality was unlike either of these scenarios. It was complex and diffuse and at times a little awkward. It was a slow build of intensity that took absolutely ages, it was rough and desperate for a while and the Doctor clung to Jack panting, almost sobbing, and it then would even out and became playful again, until the Doctor would do something with his hands or his mouth that would make Jack's breath catch painfully and the mood would shift back to something darker. When Jack finally entered him, the Doctor kept his face turned away, his eyes tightly shut, and Jack was sick with the sudden certainty that the Time Lord was light-years away in his mind and not with him at all really. And then he gasped and opened his eyes wide and laughed and said "Oh, that is, that is _brilliant_ , don't stop, Jack, don't _ever_ \--" and Jack managed to sweep the thought away, almost entirely.

"It is amazing, though, isn't it?" the Doctor murmured as Jack rocked deeper into him, finding a rhythm. "This act. Two bodies, two bits of flesh with just a little friction between them, that's all it is really, but--oh, yes, there. Oh. But really, think of it, for the sake of this friction, you humans will go to such astonishing lengths, it's still practically the driving force of all civilization. And I have to admit, it can be extremely--what, what's wrong, why are you stopping?"

"What's amazing to me," Jack said, "is that even this, _even this_ , won't stop you talking. I mean, my god, Doctor, what does it _take_?"

"Sorry. Sorrysorrysorry. Not another word, I promise, just...oh, no, no, no, no, no, come back, you can't!" he protested, as Jack pulled out of him entirely.

"Hmm. The begging's good, though," Jack mused. "Do more of that."

*

For the rest of his impossible life, Jack would remember the sound the Doctor made when he came, a choked cry more of agony than pleasure, like a word in an alien language, which perhaps it was. He shuddered convulsively against Jack's body, struggling to draw air into his lungs, it seemed, his hands clutching and clutching. "Hey," Jack said, alarmed, panting a little himself. "All right?" The Doctor nodded into his shoulder, still trembling, breathing in terrible sawing gasps.

"'S good," he said, brusque.

"Sure?" Jack panted. He cupped the Doctor's chin in his hand, tipping it up, and they looked at each other, shaken, raw, fearful. Then the Doctor broke into a beatific smile.

"Yes," he affirmed. "Oh, yes. We're doing it again, yeah? I'm on top this time?" He kissed Jack hard, toppling him back onto the mattress, then pulled away suddenly, looking worried. "If, I mean, unless...is it okay?"

"Yes, god, yes," Jack laughed.

"Fantastic," the Doctor said, clearly relieved, and fell upon him.

*

"Oh, that was good, that was...that was nice," the Doctor sighed, a long time later, when they'd both collapsed, limp and bruised and sodden, onto damp sheets. "Wasn't that nice? Told you it'd be nice."

"Not really the adjective that springs to mind," Jack said, moving his mouth as little as possible, "but sure. Nice. Uh-huh. Very...nice."

"Draining, too," the Time Lord conceded. "And you do this all the time; I can't imagine. Honestly, I can't see where you find the energy."

"Hey, I don't do it _all the time_ ," Jack opened one eye to protest. "Besides, it's not always quite that, uh, intense, you know." Although for the Doctor maybe it always was, he reflected. That would figure.

There was a long, exhausted silence in which the mood in the room shifted again, almost palpably. At last Jack turned his head and looked over to find the Doctor staring up at the ceiling with a tight, closed expression on his face. _So much for post-coital bliss,_ Jack thought with some bitterness. It felt remarkably similar to being stabbed in the gut with a very dull knife, he noted, seeing the Doctor look like that at this particular moment.

"Didn't help at all, really, did it?" he asked grimly.

The Doctor's expression tightened another notch. "It _was_ nice, though," he insisted, sparing a flinch of a smile at Jack.

"Yeah, I'm not half bad as a temporary distraction, huh?" He regretted it instantly; the Doctor's eyes were enormous and wet and he looked utterly broken, as though Jack had turned the dull knife on him.

"Bad joke," Jack backpedaled, knowing it was no good. "Bad joke, bad timing. Look, I should...I should just go," and started up at the same time as the Doctor said _"Stay,"_ and pulled him back by the wrist, wrapping himself around Jack and digging his chin sharply into his shoulder as if trying to burrow under his skin.

"I don't just mean stay," the Doctor went on, his voice rough. "I mean... _stay_. With me. For a while. Would you?"

Jack didn't say anything for a minute. It was no empty gesture, he knew, that offer; he'd hold on to that _stay_ in his mind for a while.

But he wouldn't do it, he realized with surprise.

"You just don't want to be alone," he said finally, as gently as possible.

"You're right, I don't," the Doctor acknowledged. "But I'd like it, I would, to not-be-alone with Jack Harkness again."

"I don't think I can do that, Doctor," Jack faltered. "You're...you're asking an awful lot. If you think about it. You know."

The Doctor bit him lightly on the shoulder but said nothing.

"And anyway you've got Martha," Jack went on, in a surer tone. "Remember Martha? Gorgeous smile, saved the world pretty recently, probably sitting around back on Earth wondering what the fuck is going on right about now?"

"No, I talked to Martha," the Doctor assured him. "Called her up not long ago, got a dressing-down like you wouldn't believe, told her we'd be round soon. I have a feeling she's not coming back, though. For...similar reasons to yours, I suppose."

"Oh," said Jack. "Well. You'll find someone else then, knowing you. You'll be okay."

"Course I will. Always am," the Doctor agreed, his voice as quick and bright as a hypodermic needle.

"I wonder who's more fucked up," Jack said drowsily, after a bit. "You or me?"

"Oh, you don't want to play that game with me. I _always_ win." The Doctor considered it for a minute. "You might give me a run for my money, though, eventually, if you keep it up," he allowed.

"Great, yeah, I'll work on that then," Jack mumbled, already drifting, because that was the point at which his brain and body united in their refusal to process one more thought or move another muscle, and he fell gratefully out of consciousness.

In a few hours they'd return to London and their separate lives would resume, but for the moment Jack slept, clasped in the temporary haven of the Doctor's arms and dreaming of nothing at all.


End file.
